


Tainted Child

by SalomeWordsmith



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29061381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalomeWordsmith/pseuds/SalomeWordsmith
Summary: Against all odds, the miracle happens: King Alistair and the Gray Warden Narah are expecting their first child. However, the Queen's pregnancy changes more than just her body. Something dark seems to ripen in her. The Church is convinced that the parents' taint also infected the child and Narah is carrying a demon that should never be born...
Relationships: Alistair/Warden (Dragon Age)
Kudos: 3





	Tainted Child

**I**

" _Might I beg an audience, Your Majesty?"_

Alistair, who was writing a letter to the Empress of Orlais, looked up from the paper on his desk: across the room, on the threshold to his study, stood a woman with long black hair. With her arms crossed over her chest and dressed in a coat that reached her ankles, she nonchalantly leaned against the doorframe.

" _Or am I intruding?"_

She carried a sword on her back, its hilt protruded behind her shoulder.

_Narah,_ Alistair thought at her sight and smiled.

"Intruding? Not at all. The Commander of the Grey is always welcome." He waved her inside. "Come on in, please. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

She entered the room and closed the door behind her. "Oh, there's a lot to discuss, Your Majesty," she said as she walked towards Alistair.

The black leather of her coat swung along to the rhythm of her steps. The golden light of the fireplace and the torches on the wall made her face gleam. Tiny water drops crawled out of her hairline and dripped off both sides of her jaw.

Beyond the window, rain pattered against his study's pane; therefore, Alistair assumed that she had just arrived.

"I don't even know where to start. However-" Narah reached the desk and bent over it, while her hand reached out for Alistair and grabbed his shirt's collar. "-what do you think about this?" Saying these words, she put her lips on his.

Alistair closed his eyes. He sighed and opened his mouth to kiss her back. His fingers caressed her wet hair and brushed a few knotted strands out of her face.

"What a pleasant surprise," he said as they finally let go of each other. "I had no idea you would come to Denerim."

Narah took a step back from the desk to loosen the sheath's harness which closed over her chest. Its leather creaked and the buckles tinkled as she did so. "It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision." She put her blade aside and slipped out of her coat to hang both on a chair. "Strictly speaking, no one even knows I'm here."

Alistair smirked. "Is that so, yes? Not even my guards?"

He said it as a joke which was why her answer surprised him. "Not even them. I've sneaked past them."

"Are you serious?"

She shrugged and her eyes took an expression Alistair had known since the day they both had come around in Flemeth's hut. Back then. After the devastating defeat against the Dark Spawn.

His smile vanished. He believed to feel some oozy, invisible hands that closed around his neck. "You really did sneak into the castle? But why? Are you in trouble? Did something happen?"

"Yes." When she uttered that little word, the oozy, invisible hands started to choke him. For a short moment, Alistair's breath was stuck. His chest seemed to freeze and he had to clear his throat before he could speak, but Narah caught him off. "That is, actually, no - I am not in trouble. However, yes, something happened to me. I… or rather, we…" She sighed and wiped both hands over her face. "For the sake of Andraste's left tit! That's just…"  
Alistair stood up and approached her. He remembered only one time hearing her swear like that, without any restraint: at the wedding-eve party when she had lost a drinking contest against Oghren. However, Alistair couldn't tell how much beer and liquors she had jugged in order to reach this level of vulgarity. He had been too drunk himself at this point.

To see a brave warrior like Narah that agitated, made him imagine disastrous scenarios.

The awakening of a new Arch Demon.

A farmer's riot in Amaranthine.

Still, no matter how hard Alistair tried, he couldn't think of anything more devastating than the catastrophes the two of them had mastered during the Blight. In all these hard months, he hadn't seen Narah flinch before any fight. She always kept a cool head in the eye of danger, did what had to be done. So, whatever was going on right now, it beat Alistair's powers of imagination.

Ten steps separated him from Narah. When he reached her, he put both of his hands on her shoulders. "Tell me what's wrong. Please. You scare me."

With her eyes closed, she put her head back and took another deep breath which tensed her cleavage in the steel-plated corset. "Well, what am I supposed to say… I am… expecting…" She had barely finished her sentence when she pulled her shoulders up and her chin down as if she feared some kind of reproach. Alistair, whose heart was beating so loud that a dark, full sound rushed through his ear, failed to make sense of her words at first; he thought, he was mishearing.

He cleared his throat. "Ehm, I'm sorry - can you repeat that please? I'm afraid my ears are pranking me. I thought I heard you telling me that you were…"

She smirked up to him. "He heard me alright."

Alistair opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a single sound. For minutes, he stood there, in front of his wife, silent and with his lips wide open; benumbed, like hit by a petrifying spell. Only his eyes moved, jumping back and forth between her face and her stomach. He realized at last, when he moved his hands from her shoulders to her hips, still staring on her belly. "You're with child?"  
She nodded. "Yes."

That's when relief hit him. The cold in his chest disappeared and warmth flooded his heart instead. "You're with child!" Brightly laughing, he embraced Narah, lifted her and started to spin around so that he almost tripped. "Despite the Taint in our blood? By the Maker! That's a miracle!" He put Narah back on her feet and kissed her on the forehead before he turned away from her. His cheeks burned with excitement and felt his toes and fingertips tingle.

"We're having a baby! What marvellous news! However, your face looked like the end of the world, you know. As if you were about to tell me that the Deep Roads will soonly crack the ground underneath our feet so that Ferelden will sink in lava." He wasn't aware, but the way he was running back in forth in the study reminded Narah of her dog, Chester, when he waited for her to put on her armour and weapons for hunting trips. "I will arrange someone to take over your duties in Amaranthine. I want you to focus on the baby in your body. Here, in Denerim, at my side." Alistair was speaking so fast that he already had bitten his tongue twice without even noticing it. "Lately, I had had the Teyrn of Nessea as my guest. Did you know that he and his wife have six children and are expecting the seventh? Anyway, he asked me if there would be any heirs or heiresses to reckon with. Because you're at court so rarely. And-"


End file.
